KickstarterForum.org

[sbriggman]

For those who don't know, the Coolest Cooler recently hit $7.5 million in pledges, which is mind boggling!

The project only had a $50k goal and still has 32 days to go. Why do you think the project is so successful? Seems like Kickstarter is turning into a hub for skymall-like projects.

[Inventalator]

Definitely a useful product but its nothing mind-blowing. I'd credit good video production but it seems like a case of random virality too. Just got shared by the right people! I'm willing to bet he put in a great deal of effort building hype and a solid network before launching.

[sbriggman]

Yea, what's even more crazy is he first had an unsuccessful campaign and then re-vamped it (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ry ... sts?page=2)

[Shuzza]

His unsuccessful campaign was still quite high, so he knew he had support there. The "cool" factor really has a lot to do with it I think - "look at how cool I am" - what other products on kickstarter are going to be so well known - something you can drag around with you and all the insiders know "hey, he was one of the first to know about this"... Like if you are an original backer of Apple, how does anyone know if you don't tell everyone?

[JayRM]

I'm not particularly interested in products that combine two or more other products into one, but a project like this that is coming up on 8 mil is interesting, and with 29 days left! (It actually reminds me of the movie Father of Invention with Kevin Spacey. =) Not interested in the cooler, but impressed on what he has pulled off.

He's got the website coolestkickstarter.com, which may or may not have been completely built the first time around as the first blog post appears to be in 2014, after it ended the first time around. He also has another business called http://www.inventorsblueprint.com/ which looks like he started in 2011, which also has a blog that helps other inventors. He's definitely got an audience, but still doesn't explain the difference between 100k and 8mil and counting. I'd probably just assume that he gathered his audience the first time around, then on second launch, those same backers came back. In addition, I think people are more likely to back a project that already has momentum. The rest is hype.

[Inventalator]

Crazy impressive that in less than a year he built that network and made the changes necessary on the second go-round.

[tengsupply]

I think because of the amount of SHARE he received. His video was everywhere, it kept showing up on my FB page.

[Shuzza]

tengsupply - congrats on your success. I don't care how good your wallet is, I admire that you would even try to find one more wallet shopper on Kickstarter. I only had his come up one time, but that is a good idea. I'm going to do FB ads to women who have given to KS.

[Shuzza]

I wonder what his FB ad budget is? I'm choosing some specific targets, but never thought till you said it shows up in your steam - my biggest hurdle has been for women to sign up for Kickstarter! The people that know and support me are not the youngish male demographic that Kickstarter is. THAT is one reason I was happy to see things like Reading Rainbow bring people on board.

[tengsupply]

Shuzza,

It was not ads that he used, it was people/my friends that shared his video and it ended up on my page.